“Are the rooms, then, generally very bare?” I asked.
“One never finds any luxuries. As a rule one has to be content with horsehair-covered chairs and sofas, woollen antimacassars, wax or bead flowers under glass cases, often with the addition of a stuffed parrot brought home by some favourite sailor son. But simplicity does not matter at all so long as the lodgings do not smell stuffy. The bedroom furniture generally consists of the barest necessaries, and if one’s couch have springs or a soft mattress it proves indeed a delightful surprise.
“There is a terrible type of landlady who rushes one for a large bill just at the last moment. As a rule the account should be brought up on Saturday night and settled, but this sort of woman generally manages to put off producing hers until the last moment on Sunday morning, when one’s luggage is probably on its way to the station. Then she brings forth a document which takes all the joy out of life, and sends the unhappy lodger off without a penny in her pocket. Arguing is not of the slightest use, and if one happens to be a woman, as in my case, she has to pay what is demanded rather than risk a scene.”
My friend’s experiences were so practical I asked her many questions, in reply to some of which she continued:
“I have always managed to share expenses with some one I knew, which arrangement, besides being less lonely, reduced the cost considerably; but even then there is a terrible sameness about one’s food. An egg for breakfast is very general, as some ‘ladies’ even object to cooking a rasher of bacon. Jam and other delicacies are beyond our means. Everlasting chop or steak with potatoes for dinner. One never sees a joint; it is not possible unless a slice can be begged from the landlady, in which case one often has to pay dearly for the luxury.
“We generally have supper after we return from the theatre, from which we often have to walk home a mile or more after changing. Many landladies refuse to cook anything hot at night, in which case tinned tongue or potted meat suffice; but a hot meal, though consisting only of a little piece of fish or poached eggs, is such a joy when one comes home tired and worn out, that it is worth a struggle to try to obtain.
“The least a bill ever comes to in a week is fifteen shillings, and that after studying economy in every way possible. Even though two of us lived together I never succeeded in reducing my share below that.”
“What is the usual day?”
“One has breakfast as a rule between ten and eleven—earlier, of course, if a rehearsal has been called for eleven, in which case ten minutes’ grace is given for the difference in local clocks; any one late after that time gets sharply reprimanded by the management. After rehearsal on tour a walk till two or three, a little shopping, dinner 4.30, a rest, a cup of tea at 6.30, after which meal one again proceeds to the theatre, home about 11.30, supper and bed. Week in, week out it is pretty much the same.
“For the first four years I only earned a guinea a week, and as it was necessary for me to find all my own costumes for the different parts in the companies in which I played, I had to visit second-hand shops and buy ladies’ cast-off ball dresses and things of that sort, although cheap materials and my sewing machine managed to supply me with day garments. It is extraordinary what wonderful effects one can get over the footlights with a dress which by daylight looks absolutely filthy and tawdry, provided it be well cut; that is why it is advisable to buy good second-hand clothes when possible.